1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tape printer, and more particularly to a tape printer having line enhancement features such as flush left, flush right, centering, and right justification settable to lines printed on a tape.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has been proposed a tape printer that prints desired character strings in a dot pattern along a print tape. The tape printer has many practical applications. For example, a tape can be printed with a title or information regarding the contents of a given file and then adhered or affixed to an appropriate position of a casing of the file. The tape printer can also print out a tape with a name and the tape fixed to a name plate.
The tape printer includes a print head fixed to a predetermined position and a rape feed drive for unidirectionally feeding the tape past the print head. The print head has a plurality of printing elements formed in a row or in a direction perpendicular to a direction in which the tape travels. Each element prints a dot on the tape when energized. The tape feed drive feeds the tape past the print head at a speed synchronized with energization of the print elements so the dots printed by the print elements form strings of characters on the tape. The strings of characters form a single line or a plurality of lines.
Conventional tape printers differ from other printing apparatuses, such as typewriters and word processors, in that the print head does not hi-directionally move and the tape is fed in only one direction as mentioned above. Therefore, conventional tape printers cannot print more than one line while enhancing visual appearance of the printed lines, such as flush left and flush right. In view of such a shortage of the Conventional tape printers, a tape printer which can enhance printed lines has been desired, particularly because of the wide availability of printed tapes.